intermingling himselfe in the others Woe As Angels that doe us good but have no passion for us But this Gentlemans kindnesse goeth yet further Hee compareth his love of a friend to his love of God the union of friends Soules by affection to the union of three persons in the Trinity and to the Hypostaticall union of two natures in one Christ by the Words Incarnation Most certainely hee expresseth himselfe to bee a right good natur'd man But if Saint Augustine retracted so severely his patheticall expressions for the death of his friend saying they favoured more of the Rhetoricall declamations of a young Orator then of the grave confession of a devout Christian or somewhat to that purpose what censure upon himselfe may wee expect of our Physician if ever hee make any retractation of this discourse concerning his Religion It is no small misfortune to him that after so much time spent and so many places visited in curious search by travelling after the acquisition of so many languages after the wading so deepe in Sciences as appeareth by the ample Inventory and particular hee maketh of himselfe The result of all this should bee to professe ingenuously he had studyed enough onely to become a Scepticke and that having runne through all sorts of Learning hee could finde rest and satisfaction in none This I confesse is the unlucky fate of those that light upon wrong Principles But Master White teacheth us how the Theorems and demonstrations of Physickes may be linked chained together as strongly as continuedly as they are in the Mathematickes if men would but apply themselves to a right method of Study And I doe not finde that Salomon complained of ignorance in the height of knowledge as this Gentleman saith but onely that after he hath rather acknowledged himselfe ignorant of nothing but that hee understood the natures of all Plants from the Cedar to the Hyssop and was acquainted with all the wayes and pathes of wisedome and knowledg hee exclaimeth that all this is but Toyle and vexation of Spirit and therefore adviseth men to change humane Studies into divine contemplations and affections I cannot agree to his Resolution of shutting his Bookes and giving over the search of knowledge and resigning himselfe up to ignorance upon the Reason that moveth him as though it were extreame vanity to wait our dayes in the pursuite of that which by attending but a little longer till Death hath closed the eyes of our body to open those of our Soule wee shall gain with ease wee shall enjoy by infusion and is an accessary of our Glorification It is true assoone as Death hath played the Midwife to our second birth our Soule shall then see all truths more freely then our corporal eyes at our first birth see all bodies and colours by the naturall power of it as I have touched already and not onely upon the grounds our Author giveth Yet farre be it from us to thinke that time lost which in the meane season we shall laboriously imploy to warme our selves with blowing a few little Sparkes of that glorious fire which we shall afterwards in one instant leape into the middle of without danger of Scorching And that for two important Reasons besides severall others too long to mention here the one for the great advantage wee have by learning in this life the other for the huge contentment that the acquisition of it here which implyeth a strong affection to it will be unto us in the next life The want of knowledge in our first Mother which exposed her to bee easily deceived by the Serpents cunning was the roote of all our ensuing Misery and Woe It is as true which wee are taught by irrefragable authority that Omnis peccans ignorat And the well head of all the Calamties and mischiefes in the world eonsisteth of the trouble and bitter waters of ignorance folly and rashnesse to cure which the onely remedy and antidote is the salt of true Learning the bitter Wood of Study painefull meditation and orderly confideration I doe not meane such Study as armeth wrangling Champions for clamorous Schooles where the ability of Subtile disputing to and fro is more prised then the retriving of truth But such as filleth the mind with solid and usefull notions and doth not endanger the swelling it up with windy vanities Besides the sweetest companion and entertainement of a well tempered mind is to converse familiarly with the naked and bewitching beauties of those Mistresses those Verities and Sciences which by faire courting of them they gaine and enjoy every day bring new fresh ones to their Seraglio where the ancientest never grow old or stale Is there any thing so pleasing or so profitable as this Nil dulcius est bene quam inunita tenere Edita doctrinae sapientum templa serena Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre Errare atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae But now if we consider the advantage we shall have in the other life by our affection to Sciences and conversation with them in this it is wonderfull great Indeed that affection is so necessary as without it we shall enjoy little contentment in all the knowledge we shall then bee replenished with for every ones pleasure in the possession of a good is to be measured by his precedent Desire of that good and by the quality of the tast and relish of him that feedeth upon it Wee should therefore prepare and make our â—ast before-hand by assuefaction unto and by often relishing what we shall then be nourished with That Englishman that can drinke nothing but Beere or Ale would be ill bestead were he to goe into Spaine or Italy where nothing but Wine groweth whereas a well experienced Goinfre that can criticise upon the severall tasts of liquors would thinke his Palate in Paradise among those delicious Nectars to use Aretines phrase upon his eating of a Lamprey Who was ever delighted with Tobacco the first time he tooke it who could willingly be without it after hee was a while habituated to the use of it How many examples are there dayly of young men that marrying upon their fathers command not through precedent affections of their own have little comfort in worthy and handsome wives that others would passionately effect ArchÃmedes lost his life for being so ravished with the delight of a Mathematicall demonstration that he could not of a suddaine recall his extasied Spirits to attend the rude Souldiers Summons But instead of him whose minde had beene alwayes sed with such subtile Dyet how many playne Country Gentlemen doth your Lordship and I know that rate the knowledge of their husbandry at a much higher pitch and are extreamely delighted by conversing with that whereas the other would be most tedious and importune to them We may then safely conclude that if we will joy in the Knowledge wee shall have after Death we must in our life time raise within our selves earnest
condition as maketh us understand damned Soules miserable is a necessary effect of the temper it is in when it goeth out of the Body and must necessarily out of its owne nature remaine in unvariably for all eternity Though for the conceptions of the vulgar part of mankind who are not capable of such abstruse notions it be stiled and truly too the sentence and punishment of a severe Iudge I am extreamely pleased with him when he saith there are not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith And no whit lesse when in Philosophy hee will not bee satisfied with such naked termes as in Schools use to be obtruded upon easie mindes when the Masters fingers are not strong enogh to untie the knots proposed unto them I confesse when I enquire what light to use our Authors example is I should bee as well contented with his Silence as with his telling mee it is Actus perspicui unlesse hee explicate clearely to me what those words mean which I finde very few goe about to do Such meate they swallow whole and eject it as entire But were such things scientifically and methodically declared they would bee of extreame satisfaction and delight And that worke taketh up the greatest part of my formerly mentioned treatise For I endeavour to shew by a continued progresse and not by Leapes all the motions of nature unto them to fit intelligibly the termes used by her best Secretaries whereby all wilde fantasticke qualities and moods introduced for refuges of ignorance are banished from my commerce In the next place my Lord I shall suspect that our author hath not penetrated into the bottome of those conceptions that deepe Schollers have taught us of Eternity Methinketh hee taketh it for an infinite extension of time and a never ending revolution of continuall succession which is no more like Eternity then a grosse body is like to a pure Spirit Nay such an infinity of revolutions is demonstrable to bee a contradiction and impossible In the state of eternity there is no succession no change no variety Soules or Angells in that condition doe not so much as change a thought All things notions and actions that every were are or shal bee in any creature are actually present to such an intellect And this my Lord laver not as deriving it from Thâ—ologie and having recourse to beatifike vision to make good my tenet for so onely glorified creatures should enjoy such immense knowledge but out of the principles of Nature and Reason and from thence shal demonstrate it to belong to the lowest Soule of the ignorantest wretch whiles hee lived in this world since damned in Hell A bold undertaking you will say But I confidently engage my selfe to it Vpon this occasion occurreth also a great deale to bee said of the nature of Predestination which by the short touches our Author giveth of it I doubt hee quite mistakes and how it is an unalterable Series and chaine of causes producing infallible and in respect of them necessary effects But that is too large a Theame to unfold here too vast an Ocean to describe in the scant Map of a Letter And therefore I will refer that to a fitter opportunity fearing I have already too much trespassed upon your Lordships patience but that indeed I hope you have not had enough to read thus far I am sure my Lord that you who never forgot any thing which deserved a roome in your memory doe remember how wee are told that Abyssus abyssum invocat So here our Author from the abysse of Predestination falleth into that of the Trinity of Persons consistent with the indivisibility of the divine nature And out of that if I be not exceedingly deceived into a third of mistaking when he goeth about to illustrate this admirable mysteryby a wild discourse of a Trinity in our Soules The dint of wit is not forcible enough to dissect such tough matter wherein al the obscure glimmering wee gaine of that inaccessible light commeth to us cloathed in the darke weeds of negations and therefore little can wee hope to meete with any positive examples to parallel it withall I doubt hee also mistakenth and imposeth upon the severer Schooles when he intimateth that they gainesay this visible worlds being but a picture or shadow of the invisible intellectual which manner of Philosophising hee attributeth to Hermes Trismegistus but is every where to be met with in Plato and is raised since to a greater height in the Christian Schooles But I am sure hee learned in no good Schoole nor sucked from any good Philosophy to give an actuall subsistence and being to first matter without a forme Hee that will allow that a Reall existence in nature is as superficially tincted in Metaphysicks as an other would bee in Mathematicks that should allow the like to a point a line or a superficies in Figures These in their strict Notions are but negations of further extension or but exact terminations of that quantity which falleth under the consideration of the understanding in the present purpose no reall entities in themselves so likewise the notions of matter forme act power existence and the like that are with truth considered by the understanding and have there each of them a distinet entity are never the lesse no where by themselves in nature They are termes which wee must use in the negotiations of our thoughts if wee will discourse consequently and conclude knowingly But then againe wee must bee very wary of attributing to things in their owne natures such entities as wee create in our understandings when wee make pictures of them there for there every different consideration arising out of the different impression which the same thing maketh upon us hath a distinct being by it self Whereas in thing there is but one single vnity that sheweth as it were in a glasse at severall positions those various faces in our understanding In a word all these words are but artificiall termes not reall things And the not right understanding them is the dangerousest rocke that Schollers suffer ship wracke against I goe on with our Phisitians contemplations Vpon every occasion hee shewech strong parts and a vigorous brayne His wishes and aymes and what he pointeth at speake him owner of a noble a generous heart He hath reason to wish that Aristotle had been as accurate in examining the causes nature and affections of the great Vniverse hee busied himselfe about as his Patriarke Galen hath beene in the like considerations upon his little World mans body in that admirable worke of his de usu partium But no great humane thing was ever borne and perfected at once It may satisfie us if one in our age buildeth that magnifike structure upon the others foundations and especially if where hee findeth any of them unsound he eradicateth those and fixeth new unquestionable ones in their roome but so as they still in grosse keep a proportion and beare a Harmony with the
Christ had not come to teach and by his example to shew us the way And this was the Reason of his incarnatiod teaching life death for being God wee could not doubt his veracity when he told us newes of the other world having all things in his power and yet enjoying none of the delights of this life no man should sticke at foregoing them since his example sheweth all men that such a course is best whereas few are capable of the Reason of it And for his last act dying in such an afflicted manner hee taught us how the securest way to step immediately into perfect happinesse is to be crucified to all the desires delights and contentments of this World But to come backe to our Physician Truely my Lord I must needs pay him as a due the acknowledging his pious discourses to bee excellent and patheticall ones containing worthy motives to encite one to vertue and to deterre one from vice thereby to gaine Heaven and to avoid Hell Assuredly he is owner of a solid head and of a strong generous heart Where hee imployeth his thoughts upon such things as thoughts upon such things as resoit to no higher or more abstruse Principles then such as occurre in ordinary conversation with the world or in the common tracke of study and learning I know no man would say better But when hee meeteth with such difficulties as his next concerning the Resurrection of the body wherein after deepe meditation upon the most abstracted principles and speculations of the Metaphysikes one hath much adoe to solve the appearing contradictions in Nature There I doe not at all wonder hee should tread a little awry and goe astray in the darke for I conceive his course of life hath not permitted him to allow much time unto the unwinding of such entangled and abstracted subtilties But if it had I beleeve his naturall parts are such as he might have kept the chaire from most men I know for even where hee roveth widest it is with so much wit and sharpenesse as putteth me in mind of a great mans censure upon Ioseph Scaligers Cyclometrica a matter he was not well versed in that hee had rather erre so ingeniously as he did then hit upon Truth in that heavy manner as the Iesuite his antagonist stuffeth his Bookes Most assuredly his wit and smartnesse in this discourse is of the finest Standard and his insight into severer Learning will appeare as piercing unto such as use not strictly the touchstone and the Test to examine everypeece of the glittering coine hee payeth his reader with But to come to the Resurrection Methinkes it is but a grosse conception to thinke that every Atome of the present individuall matter of a body every graine of Ashes of a burned Cadaver scattered by the wind throughout the world and after numerous variations changed peradventure into the body of another man should at the sounding of the last Trumpet be raked together againe from all the corners of the earth and be made up anew into the same Body it was before of the first man Yet if we will be Christians and rely upon Gods promises wee must beleeve that we shall rise againe with the same Body that walked about did eate drinke and live here on earth and that we shall see our Saviour and Redeemer with the same the very same eyes wherewith we now look upon the fading Glories of this contemptible world How shall these seeming contrarieties bee reconciled if the latter be true why should not the former be admitted To explicate this riddle the better give me leave to aske your Lordship if you now see the Cannons the Ensignes the Armes and other martiall preparations at Oxford with the same eyes wherewith many yeares agone you looked upon Porphyries and Aristotles glearned leases there I doubt not but you will answer mee Assuredly with the very same Is that noble and Gracefull person of yours that begetteth both delight and Reverence in every one that looketh upon it Is that body of yours that now is growne to such comely and full dimensions as Nature can give her none more advantagious the same person the same body which your vertuous and excellent Mother bore nine moneths in her chast and honoured wombe and that your Nurse gave sucke unto most certainely it is the same And yet if you consider it well it cannot bee doubted but that sublunary matter being in a perpetuall flux and in bodies which have internall principles of Heate and motion much continually transpiring out to make roome for the supply of new aliment at the length in long processe of time all is so changed As that Ship at Athens may as well bee called the same ship that was there two hundred yeares before and whereof by reason of the continuall reparations not one foote of the Tymber is remaining in her that builded her at the first As this Body now can be called the same it was forty yeares agone unlesse some higher consideration keepe up the Identity of it Now what that is Let us examine and whether or no it will reach to our difficulty of the Resurrection Let us consider then how that which giveth the numerical individuation to a Body is the substantiall forme As long as that remaineth the same though the matter be in a continuall fluxe and motion yet the thing is still the same There is not one droppe of the same water in the Thames that ranne downe by Whitehall yesternight yet no man will deny but that it is the same River that was in Queene Elizabeths time as long as it is supplied from the same Common Stocke the Sea Though this example reacheth not hom it illustrateth the thing If then the forme remaine absolutely the same after separation from the matter that it was in the matter which can happen onely to formes that subsist by themselves as humane Soules it followeth then that whensoever it is united to matter againe all matter comming out of the same common Magazine it maketh againe the same man with the same eyes and all the same limbes that were formerly Nay hee is composed of the same Individuall matter for it hath the same distinguisher and individuator to wit the same forme or Soule Matter considered singly by it selfe hath no distinction All matter is in it selfe the same we must fansie it as we doe the indigested Chaos It is an uniformely wild Ocean Particularize a few drops of the Sea by filling a glasse full of them then that glasse full is distinguished from all the rest of the watery Bulke But returne backe those few drops to from whence they were taken and the Glasse-full that even now had an individuation by it selfe loseth that and groweth one and the same with the other maine stocke Yet if you fill your glasse againe whersoever you take it up so it be of the same uniforme Bulke of water you had before it is the same Glasse-full of water that